In a recent issue, we ran an article on Y2K compliance by software
developer and consultant Joe Demty along with a two-paragraph
sidebar headed "A bit of trivia."
The sidebar attributed coinage of the term "bug" to Adm. Grace
Murray Hopper at Harvard University, where, in 1945, she is said to
have discovered a dead moth in a computer tape and preserved it in
a logbook.
Well, we heard from Alice Rose, president of the Classic Journey
Co. in Wolfeboro Falls, N.H., who wanted to set the record
straight.
Rose said that Adm. Hopper, now deceased, always acknowledged
that it was her colleague and Rose's husband, Robert W. Rose, also
deceased, who actually discovered the moth in the Aiken Relay
Calculator and that he brought the moth to Adm. Hopper with the
words "There was a bug in the machine."
It seems that the attribution of the term to the admiral has
become the consensus version down through the decades. Demty, for
example, found that version in no fewer than four different sources
on the history of computing.
So, thanks to Alice Rose -- who just happens to be the head of a
travel agency -- for the update.
Wake up, ya sleepyhead
So, we're all sitting around with this collective Cheshire-cat
grin, basking in the nonevent that was Y2K, though we keep an eye
peeled, wondering if the Anti-Techie (Beelzebug?) isn't just
cooling his heels till 2/29/00.
One report on national network TV, in the days leading up to the
31st, was troubling to us Italophiles. It said Italy was behind the
curve on readiness and compliance, not having taken steps,
nationally, till around the summer of '99.
Then, on Jan. 2, the Italian news agency Ansa reported that in
the village of Benate Sotto, in the north's Lombardy region, the
church's bells went off at 6:15 a.m., hours earlier than
scheduled.
A local priest's assistant said he knew something was wrong when
the clock in the tower struck, then stuck at midnight, and when
they got around to checking, it turned out the computerized
bell-ringing system had kicked over to 1980.
Bad enough Jan. 1 is a Roman Catholic holy day of obligation.
(It commemorates the circumcision of Jesus.)
We hope a ringing headache is about as bad as it got in Benate
Sotto -- or anywhere else in that glorious country.
A product with legs
"Onomatopoeia" (remember?) is the ability of a word to sound
like what it depicts. (Think "hiss," for example.)
In that spirit, "scrumptious" might be the word to describe a
confection being sold at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa near
Phoenix: scorpion candy.
(The consonant clusters scr and mpt seem particularly suggestive
of a foodstuff composed principally of carapace and
protoplasm.)
The candy is called (get this) Amber InsectNside and sells in
the hotel's gift shop for $4 a pop.
Mary Kelly, the resort's director of retail, said the shop sells
about 500 pieces a month.
Insider would like to have sampled this for our readers, but,
doggonnit, when we heard about it, we were far, far from
Arizona.
We suspect, though, that a tasting would have brought us right
back to the fancy word at the top of the item: "onomatopoeia,"
especially the poeia part.
Street food revisited
On a somewhat more appetizing note, Insider's recent rev-erie
about street food reminded Shirley Linde, senior editor at Smallshipcruises.com, of the Rolling Kitchen that
arrives periodically in Treasure Cay, on the Bahamian island of
Abaco.
She said the roadside van "specialized in chicken, fish and
sometimes wild boar," which caused us to wonder:
Can there be such a thing as domesticated wild boar?
Surely, somewhere in the world, someone farms wild boar, which
is, by the way, a specific type of swine, not merely a swine on the
loose.
And, if they are farmed, could there then be such a thing as
free-range wild boar?
Fluff
An item we ran on stuff (including a ficus tree) stolen -- ahem,
lifted -- from hotel rooms prompted some memories.
From the Wyndham El San Juan in Puerto Rico we heard that one
potential pilferer left behind a note: "Your towels are too thick.
I couldn't close my suitcase."
Note to hoteliers everywhere: Think twice before outfitting your
gorgeously redecorated guest rooms with those new, wafer-thin
TVs.